01 Introduction

In this paper I suggest that culture is not, as is commonly supposed, a force external to us; but
rather a personal experience of feedback from the human and artefactual environment we
inhabit. I call this experience Culture/Feedback.

The word 'culture' gets used a lot in discussions of design; practice and theory. ‘Culture’ is
used in the same spirit as 'tradition' or 'society' were once used in anthropology and sociology.
Used in ways so broad that while all acknowledged that they were real none could show where
they were located. We seem to regard 'culture' as a singular, unified thing; some sort of
aethereal substance that can penetrate any prison cell to bring cultural belonging to a prisoner.

Despite the huge gulf between traditional cultural models and schools we tenaciously cling
on to this notion of culture as a substance. Authorship appears as a contribution 'into' the mass
of culture; while viewers (readers, users, 'the user' of user centred design) 'take' what they can
'from' culture; we can have an perspective on culture, we can 'share' our culture; culture is
apparently a 'melting pot'. The model, as you can see, is firmly one of culture as a substance.
And if we take out daily experience as an unthinking guide this seems a fair supposition:
however I would ask that, for a moment, you think about your own 'culture'. Are you the same
person, with the same culture, at the airport check-in desk as you are with your parents at
home. Are your actions the same in church (temple, etc.) as they are in you car driving to work.
When you socialise with your closest friends do you think and react in the same ways you do
with your children? I suspect not. None of us truly inhabit singular cultures, together with those
proximate to us we are co-creators in a myriad of cultures wit our every interaction.1

In the course of my researches into a model of design as an emergent complex system2 it

became clear that it is unhelpful to regard culture as a singular thing, or if it is a singular thing
it could only conceivably be singular in a Deleuzian manner; as a Rhizomic form: with diverse
elements in different locations contributing to the whole while retaining their individual nature.

'Unlike the graphic arts, drawing, or photography, unlike tracings, the rhizome pertains to a
map that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable,
reversible, modifiable, and has multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flights.… In
contrast to centred (even polycentric) systems with hierarchical modes of communication and
preestablished paths, the rhizome is acentred, nonhierachical , nonsignifiying system without a
General and without an organizing memory or central automation.' (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988,
p.25)

If we accept culture as some sort of all pervasive aetheric material, a downwardly causal
force,3 we cannot explain the emergence of children’s games in Sao Paulo or street fashion in
London: such currents begin as mysterious turbulence in the stream of experience and months
later become pervasive forms. If we treat ‘culture’ as a map to be read or as a material
amenable to forensic analysis we are laying down a host of problems for ourselves.

02. Definitions

Readings of Luhmann’s work on the structure and nature of society and the cultures that
inhabit it suggest that culture may usefully be thought of as autpoetic (Luhmann, 1990), a self-
organising system with no inherent duration.4 However the lack of a clear mechanism for this
self-organisation is problematic, especially for those of us with an interest in organising
communication within it. So while Luhmann notes, ' … that the elements composing the system

1 I use the term 'proximate' deliberately. The splintering of cultures across the net has shown us that proximity need
not be spatial (as in 'close to us') but can be virtual and mediated.
2 Downs., Simon, Bikes don't break legs. Pp. 56 from Design and semantics of form and movement 2007, Philips
Electronics N.V., 2007, ISBN-13: 978-0-9549587-1-8
3 In a Marxist sense, or Weberian sense

4 A point also made by Latour.

can have no duration, and thus must be constantly be reproduced by the system these
elements comprise.' (1996, p. 5), a mode of operation is not suggested. Speaking of art
curation he finds this element of autopoeis.

'This period (of history) also introduces a reflexive concept of culture: it situates culture
within the context of historical and regional ("national") comparisons for the purpose of
evaluation. Once the game of observation is played at this level, it finds rules and opportunities
for self-affirmation, which, for time provide sufficient orientation.' (Luhmann, 2000, p.132)

Once again the source of these ‘rules and opportunities’ is not suggested.

Research into emergent and complex adaptive systems leads me to propose that culture
could usefully, and simply be described as the individuals experience of a system of feedback.
Feedback from others, in response to their own moment by moment actions. No duration is
required: the existence of culture is maintained by the daily actions of those who are both
recipients and co-authors of it; and by reference to artefacts, to other's reactions to artefacts
and to our reactions to each other. Much like Lacan's Chains of Signification or a Hermeneutic
circle, but in many dimensions and directions at once.

'This goes far beyond merely replacing defunct parts, and is not adequately explained by
referring to environmental relationships. It is not a matter of adaptation, nor is it a matter of
metabolism; rather, it is a matter of a peculiar constraint on autonomy arising from the fact
that the system would simply cease to exist in any, even the most favourable, environment if it
did not equip the momentary elements that compose it with the capacity for connection, that
is, with meaning, and thus reproduce them.' (Luhmann, 1996, p.11)

Such a system brings certain benefits, notably simplicity. It represents a bottom up system of of
interactions not mediated any external agency or support strata (in the way that pipes and
taps mediate the flow of water in a plumbing system).5 We need not assume the existence of
anything external to culture in order to explain the affect of culture. All the actors of culture –
people’s actions and artefacts – are inside culture.6 As Luhmann puts it:

'In every last detail, culture knows and says of itself that it is culture. It fashions its own
historically or nationally comparative distinctions – first with gestures of superiority for one's
own culture in comparison with others, and nowadays with more of an open, casual admission
that cultures are many and varied.' (Luhmann, 2000, p.85)

To which I would suggest the addition, the we are actors in many cultures at one and the
same time.

If we look for a support structure for culture, the framework upon which it hangs, where can
we find it? Not in books, or great buildings, libraries or archiving systems; paintings or sports,
marital taboos or death rituals. These are all clearly of culture, and are internal to culture.
Where I would suggest that we are the structure upon which culture is played out and the
players too others would disagree. For example the United Nations Definitions of Intangible
Culture, illuminates this confusion of artefact / support with culture, expressed by a range of
national interests.

'Intangible Cultural Heritage is the nation’s oral heritage, folklore and spiritual culture, that
consists of proverbs, habits, traditions, actions and individual and communal qualities that
distinguish society from others. This cultural heritage also includes family, wedding habits, arts,
letters, songs, settlements and travelling, marriage and delivery, death, food, drinks, medicine
and curing, typical Kuwaiti story telling, crafts and activities of Kuwaitis in the past.' National

5 I hope you see the distinction here. If we regard culture as analogous to water, all of the things that are traditionally
given the role of cultural supports; books, paintings, songs, food, jokes, etc.; cannot be considered culture (they are
the supports). But they clearly are culture, as are the ways that we interact with these supports.
6 As in the case of a Lego® model. All the parts are distinct, all make the final model, all can be redistributed to make
a different model without destroying the integrity of the individual pieces
Library of Kuwaiti (UN, 2001, p.1)

or

'Tangible cultural is the material aspect and intangible culture is the spiritual aspect of life.
Visual arts are tangible culture. Performing arts are intangible.' Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Myanmar (UN, 2001, p.2)

This confusion of the artefact / support was noted by Derrida in Paper Machine. He
explicitly suggests that we (wrongly) conflate the support and the cultural action in the form of
the book: confusing through our daily experience the book as the cultural actor rather than our
engagement with the artefact as a cultural action.

'… the question of the book should not be conflated with that of it's supports. Quite
literally, or else metonymically …, it is possible, and this has certainly been done, to speak of
books that have the most different kinds of support–not just the classical ones but the quasi
immaterially or virtuality of electronic and telematic operations, of "dynamic supports" with or
without screens. We cannot be sure that the unity and identity of the thing called "book" is
incompatible with these new tele-technologies. In fact this is what we have to debate.' (Derrida,
2005, p.5)

Stealing a phrase from Latour I would suggest that culture 'has no duration'. Culture exists
only when we, as actors, create it; when we cease our actions, the culture is gone. I can feel
the pain of creators and academics alike at this bold statement. Regardless, I would deny that
the Mona Lisa, Hendrix's 'Purple Rain', the ¥1000 note, mini-skirts, burkas, the steak and chip
dinner (sorry M. Barthes) have any inherent cultural action at all, without the action and
interaction of the user as co-creator. When one group utilises symbols from another, it is not a
misunderstanding; it is not even a Deleuzian reterritorialization; for the artefact in question has
not been appropriated by one culture and lost to the other; all that has happened is a different
composition (in a Spinosistic sense7) which achieves a new, but singular significance, which in
no way invalidates any pre-existing significance.

The second half of my suggested reading of the nature of culture derives from Latour's
Actor Network Theory, which recast the study of Sociology as a study of interactions between
the actors, rather than the study of an external material (or strata) effecting the human actors.

'Problems arise, however, when 'social' begins to mean a type of material, as if the
adjective was roughly comparable to other terms like 'wooden', 'steely', 'biological',
'economical', 'mental', 'organizational', or 'linguistic'. At that point the meaning of the word
breaks down since it now designates two entirely different things: first, a movement during a
process of assembling; and second, a specific type of ingredient that is supposed to differ from
other materials.' (Latour, 2005, p.1)

I would suggest that culture is the awareness we feel whenever we are in contact with
others (which is perhaps why we sometimes seek solitude so ardently). The feedback we gain
from the mere presence of others – the kinaesthesic twitches, the tone of voice, the glance – all
instantly feedback our current, unconscious, network of relationships to others.8 This feedback
is I believe the singular base unit of culture. The figure 1 shows a simple culture in action.

7 'The good is when a body directly compounds its relation with ours, and with all or part of its power increases our.'
Spinoza as quoted by Deleuze., Giles, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. City Lights Books, 1998.
8 Is this why autists are so isolated, not just from individuals, but from culture?
 Is there a shred of evidence to support the existence of such a mechanism? Absolutely yes!
Unconscious and unpremeditated transmission of feeling and attitudes is recognised in the
fields of psychology. It is called Emotional Contagion:

'Emotional contagion, we believe, Is best conceptualized as a multiply determined family or

psychophysiological, behavioral, and social phenomena. Because emotional contagion can be
produced by innate stimulus features (e.g., a mother's nurturing expressions and actions
toward an infant), acquired stimulus features, and or mental simulations or emotional imagery,
we say it is multiply determined. Because it can manifest as responses that are either similar
(e.g., as when smiles elicit smiles) or complementary (e.g., as when a fist raised in anger
causes a timid person to shrink back in fear, a process sometimes called countercontagion) it
represents a family of phenomena. Emotional contagion is also a multilevel phenomenon: The
precipitating stimuli arise from one individual, act upon (i.e., are perceived and interpreted by)
one or more other individuaIs, and yield corresponding or complementary emotions
(conversant awareness; facial, vocal and postural expression; neurophysiological and
autonomic nervous system activity; and gross emotional behavioural responses) in these
individuals. Thus, an important consequence of emotional contagion is an attentional,
emotional, and behavioral synchrony that has the same adaptive utility (and drawbacks) for
social entities (dyads, groups) as has emotion for the individual.

… This is defined as 'the tendency to automaticaliy mimic and synchronize facial

expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and,
consequently to converge emotionally.'

(Hatfield et al., 1992, pp. 153--154)' '

(Hatfield et al, 1994, pp. 4-5)

More specifically Hatfield (et al.) talk of a form of emotional contagion called
Mimicry/Feedback which I would suggest closely my suggested culture/feedback model of
networks of human interaction:

'Mimicry/feedback. … This psychological mechanism, which we suspect may be how

emotional contagion generally occurs, can be summarized as follows:

Proposition 1. In conversation, people tend automatically and continuously to mimic and

synchronize their movements with facial expressions, voices, postures, movements, and
instrumental behaviours of others.

Proposition 2. Subjective emotional experiences are affected, moment to moment, by the

activation and/or feedback from such mimicry.

Theoretically, one's emotional experience may be influenced by either:

1. the central nervous system commands that direct such mimicry/synchrony in the first
place;

2. the efferent feedback from such facial, verbal, postural, or movement

mimicry/synchrony; or

3. self-perception processes wherein individuals draw inferences about their own emotional
states based on the emotional expressions and behaviours evoked in them by the emotional
states of others (Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989; Izard, 1971; Laird, 1984; Tomkins, 1963).

Proposition 3. Given Propositions 1 and 2, people tend to "catch" others emotions, moment
to moment.'

(Emphasis in bold are the authors)

Point '3' above is analogous to the comprehensive, internal functional models of each others
world view that Daniel Dennett suggests that we all posses: he calls this the intentional
stance, and suggests that communication would not be possible without it.9 This awareness
must include the ability to predictively plan out our responses to the behaviours of others but
also their responses to the artefacts we make and deploy, and it is likely that this ability
operates at a level below that of consciousness.10 The meaning of an artefact derives from the
reader not the author. They function as partners, the author holding (in Dennett's terms) an
Intentional Stance of the user and encoding in the artefact meanings which she hopes the user
may be able to access. We launch our designs into the world in the hope that they can extend
our range of cultural operations.

'How long can a social connection be followed without objects taking up the relay? A
minute? An hour? A microsecond? ' (Latour, 2005, p. 78)

'… objects appear associable with one another and with social ties only momentarily.' (Ibid,
p.80)

And in true post-structuralist fashion our artefact may be read in various polysemous ways,
each depending on how well we have understood the network we are forming with our co-
creators.

That our personal responses to artefacts and the people who make shape our
understanding them is clear. If there is no-one or nothing to partner with there is no culture:
culture is not only not there if we don't observe it, it is not there if, as actors, we don't make it.

9 'This sort of interpretation calls for us to adopt what I call the intentional stance: we must treat the noise-emitter as
an agent, indeed a rational agent, who harbours beliefs and desires and other mental states that exhibit
intentionality or "aboutness," and whose actions can be explained (or predicted) on the basis of the content of
these states.' p.76.
Dennett., Daniel, Consciousness Explained. 1993, Penguin, London.
10 "Our decisions are predetermined unconsciously a long time before our consciousness kicks in," says John-Dylan
Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, Germany,' New Scientist, vol 198, no.
2652, p.14.
 'One solution is to stick to the new definition of social as fluid visible only when new
associations are being made.' (Latour, 2005, p.79)

'Groups are made, agencies are explored, and objects play a role.' (Ibid, p.87)

To misquote Sartre 'culture is other people'.

Traditional view of culture as consumption, production and reproduction lack the flexibility
to explain away it's visible dynamism. For example Marx tells us:

'The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. The class that has the
means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of
mental production. (Marx and Engles, 1970: 64)' (as quoted in Barnard, 1998, p. 168).

Viewed from such a Marxist production/consumption model it is difficult to see how the
cultural 'command economy' could form both the vast swells and minor currents that we see
and experience as culture?<7> In truth, the answer must be 'no'. Here the sciences can
usefully guide the arts: Emergence Theory gives us a way of thinking about the grand sum
effect of a myriad of miniscule interactions. Interactions that form wholly novel objects and
phenomena; vastly bigger, stronger, more subtle and completely different in nature than the
individual components. This theory has been used to model; tornados, where myriad
microscopic air currents can rip towns apart; market economics, where individual trader action
can wreck an economy; and ecological models, where the concept of 'the tipping point' has
become a piece of everyday speech. In short Emergence offers us an arena in which trends can
sweep the world, guided and formed by numberless interactions: unpredictably and non-
deterministically.

Luhmann approaches an understanding of bottom-up self-organising functions on a socio-

cultural level (Emergence or something very much like it). Speaking of social formations he
notes:

'A tradition stemming from antiquity, older that the conceptual use of the term "system",
speaks of wholes that are composed of parts. The problem with this tradition is that the whole
had to be understood in a double sense: as the unity and as the totality of its parts. One could
say that the whole is the totality of its parts. One could then say that the whole is the totality of
its parts or is more than the sum of its parts.' (Luhmann, 1996, p.5)

Where his reading differs from that offered by Emergence Theory is that he notes:

'…this does not explain how the whole, if it be composed of it's parts, plus something else, can
count as a unity on the level of paths'. (Ibid, p.5)

By contrast Emergence Theory does explain how diverse minor components and effects can
build identifiable coherent structures (like cultures).

'…emergence refers to “the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and
properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems.” The common
characteristics are: (1) radical novelty (features not previously observed in the system); (2)
coherence or correlation (meaning integrated wholes that maintain themselves over some
period of time); (3) A global or macro “level” (i.e., there is some property of “wholeness”); (4) it
is the product of a dynamical process (it evolves); and (5) it is “ostensive” — it can be
perceived. For good measure, Goldstein throws in supervenience — downward causation.'
(Corning, 2002, p.7)

We can see analogues of all of these in the way a multitude of individual actions by
humans and artefacts form culture.

1. Radical novelty: Humans in groups behave in ways that they never would
 individually (see Emotional Contaigion above.)

2. Coherence: The actors in a culture reinforce each other in their cultural

observances. This reinforcement, by each actor, to each actor gives a feeling of
continuity.

3. Global or Macro level: We can perceive the difference of the sum and the parts in a
culture: without in any way doubting the existence of either.

4. Dynamism: Cultures evolve. As the actors in the culture change, as it’s internal and
external compositions change, the culture can be seen to observe.

5. Ostensiveness: We can clearly appreciate the differences between cultures; even

between cultures that we are actors in, even when we are actors in different cultures.

6. Downward Causation: Cultures, although fashioned by their actors, downwardly

effect the behaviours and thoughts of these actors.

Why does this change of understanding of the nature of culture matter to designers? If
culture derives from systems of downward delivery to the user we need do nothing to change
our practices: we can continue to launch our product into the aether with only the most general
understandings of culture with a monadic nature. One solution, correctly derived for one
audience, will work generically across all members of that culture.

If however culture is not only deeply atomistic (in a post-modern, fractured sense), but
actively composing and decomposing with each combination of actor, artefact and
environment, then we cannot rely on our own understanding. We must get used to the idea of
actively engaging with our audience as full partners in the enterprise: on their terms, on their
home ground; allowing them to lead us in our work.

"The theory of self-producing, autopoetic systems can be transferred to the domain of

action systems only if one begins with the fact that the elements composing the system can
have not duration, and thus must be constantly reproduced by the system these elements
comprise." (Luhmann, 1996, p.11)

04. Conclusions

If this is true why is it relevant to Visual Communication designers? We are told that we
belong to a culture, that we are in a dependent relationship to culture. And this may have
been a satisfying explanation in simpler times, when all that we knew in our lives was the
comforting pressure of the monoculture. Without challenge, life in a monoculture can be read
as one in which each individual lives dependently in 'the culture'. In modern heterogeneous
society, where individuals act out different roles with each interaction they make during the
day; one moment good family member, the next a selfish commuter fighting for space, a
worker, a nationalist, a liberal, all wrapped in the same physical frame; it becomes less
plausible to suggest that that we belong to 'a culture'. At the very least we must belong to
multiple cultures. For a VisCom designer knowing the cultural state of the user (the user in
composition with a when, where, and in company with) and their possible relationships with the
designer's product are essential.

------------------------

Bibliography:

Luhmann., Niklas, Essays on Self-Reference. Columbia University Press. 1990.

Luhmann., Niklas, Social Systems (Writing Science). Stanford University Press. 1996.

Luhmann., Niklas, Art as a Social System. Standford University Press. 2000 (a).

Luhmann., Niklas, The Reality of Mass Media. Polity Press/Blackwell. 2000 (b).